The Clinical Comprehensive Exam (otherwise referred to as Clinical Comps) is an assessment of the student’s knowledge, practice and applied skills in Clinical & Counseling Psychology and Health Services Psychology, more broadly. The Clinical Comps is comprised of a written and oral component. The written portion of the exam consists of a clinical case report. Examinees will also present the case orally and be able to answer case relevant questions. As part of the oral portion of the exam, students are required to present video/audiotaped samples of their assessment and therapy skills with the client. Students should also be prepared to answer a broad range of questions related to child and/or adult psychopathology, assessment and treatment, the integration of research and research methodology, ethical and legal standards, individual and cultural diversity, and the supervision process, among others.
Purpose of PhD Comprehensive Examination: To determine if students are ready to attend a Pre-Doctoral Psychology Internship as reflected in their ability to present, discuss, and defend (both written and orally) their understanding, integration, and application of the fields of Clinical and Counseling Psychology. In determining if students are ready for Pre-Doctoral Internship, students must demonstrate Minimum Levels of Achievement in certain of the Profession-Wide Competencies (PWCs) set forth by the American Psychological Association's Commission on Accreditation (APA CoA) and in other applied clinical skills. The domains to be assessed in the Clinical Comps are below.
Case presentation: Quality, comprehensiveness, and professionalism of both the written and oral case presentation.
Psychopathology and Diagnosis: Student’s knowledge of psychopathology literature (e.g., DSM-5-TR, associated features, prevalence, differential diagnosis, empirical literature) relevant to the case.
Evidence-based intervention: Demonstrates appropriate knowledge, skills and attitudes in the selection, implementation and evaluation of interventions that are based on the best scientific research evidence; respectful of clients’ values/preferences; and relevant expert guidance.
Evidence-based assessment: Demonstrates appropriate knowledge, skills and attitudes in the selection, administration and interpretation of assessments consistent with the best scientific research evidence and relevant expert guidance.
Ethical and legal standards: Demonstrates appropriate ethical and legal knowledge, skills and attitudes in all professional roles.
Individual and cultural diversity: Demonstrates appropriate knowledge, skills and attitudes about cultural and individual differences in all professional roles.
Professional values and attitudes: Demonstrates dispositions and engages in behaviors that reflect the values and attitudes of the psychology profession, in all professional roles.
Communication and interpersonal skills: Demonstrates ability to communicate effectively, to interact appropriately, and to develop meaningful and helpful relationships in all professional roles.
Consultation/inter-professional/interdisciplinary: Demonstrates appropriate knowledge, skills and attitudes regarding inter-professional and interdisciplinary collaboration in relevant professional roles.
Supervision: Demonstrates appropriate knowledge, skills and attitudes regarding the instruction and oversight of trainees and other professionals.
Reflective practice: Demonstrates appropriate knowledge, skills, and attitudes in reflecting on, critically evaluating, and improving one’s own professional performance.
Requirements for the Clinical Comprehensive Examination
The Written Case Report: Students must write a de-identified case report for their chosen therapy case. The case report is expected to include the following components:
A detailed description of the patient’s Referral Concern and Presenting Problem(s)
A detailed history of the client, including Client Identification, Family History, Medical and Developmental History, Social and Academic History, and Treatment and Assessment History
A detailed summary of the Intake Assessment process and diagnostic conclusions
A Case Formulation that integrates the history, assessment data, and presenting problem(s), as well as consideration of individual and cultural factors.
A detailed Treatment Plan that specifies treatment relevant to the presenting problem and the case formulation. The treatment procedures should address the client’s deficits and/or excesses and should follow logically from the case formulation. Treatments should adhere to evidence-based practice guidelines.
A detailed description of Treatment Progress over the course of the treatment plan. This should include mention of communication and interpersonal skills used during treatment, whether the student engaged in any consultation and/or interdisciplinary collaboration, and any ethical and/or legal standards that were considered during the course of treatment.
A detailed description of the Routine Outcome Monitoring procedures the student used to evaluate the effectiveness of the treatment over time as well as an explanation of the supervision process.
Regarding formatting, the Written Case Report is expected to be written according to APA 7th edition formatting guidelines. This includes a Title page, a table of contents, page numbers, and appropriate headings for each of the aforementioned components within the body of the paper (see template). The Written Case Report should be no longer than 15 pages, double spaced, 1" margins, 12-point Times New Roman font (excluding any assessment data or other non-text materials placed in the appendix).
Appendices - Assessment protocols and results (e.g., observational data, test data) should be included as appendices to the report and are not included in the total page count. Care should be taken to de-identify all assessment protocols.
The Oral Defense: The examinee will give an oral case presentation, approximately 15 minutes, which should include at least two video or audiotaped session samples (2-3 minutes each) and should cover the aforementioned components described in the Written Case Report. Committee members will ask questions during and/or after the case presentation to ensure adequate basis for evaluating the student's performance in the areas required. The oral defense will be restricted to a total of 2 hours and the majority of that time will be devoted to questions from the committee.
Steps to Completing the Clinical Comps Exam (Timeline)
Select an appropriate therapy case: The student should consult with their clinical supervisor and primary mentor to identify an appropriate therapy case. The case should be sufficiently representative of the student's work across both assessment and intervention to provide an opportunity for relevant questioning. The case will be one seen largely during the student's enrollment in CCP756; however, the student can also choose a case that they began seeing in the summer of their 2nd year (i.e., PSY556).
Submit the application to sit for the Clinical Comps Exam: Once a case has been identified and agreed upon by the student, the clinical supervisor, and primary mentor, the student must complete the Doctoral Clinical Competency Examination Application. This form must be submitted no later than the first day of classes during the semester in which they intend to sit for the exam.
Submit the Written Case Report: Once the student has completed the Doctoral Clinical Competency Application and is approved to proceed, the student will be provided with the names of their committee members by the DCT. Upon receiving the names of the committee members, the student should work with the Graduate Programs Administrative Assistant to complete and submit the Appointment of Graduate Faculty form. This form must be completed prior to submitting the written case report to the committee.
The student must then submit a copy of their written case report to each member of their committee. This must occur no later than the Monday following Spring Break of the calendar year prior to applying to internship, which would typically be a student’s third year of the CCP program.
The committee members have seven business days to independently review the written case report, complete the Written Case Report Rubric, and turn in their Written Case Report Rubric to the committee chair. The chair will determine whether the student has ‘passed’ the written case report portion of the Clinical Comps examination and notify the student within 48 hours. See the Evaluation section below for more details. If the student passes the Written Case Report portion, they may proceed with scheduling the Oral Defense.
Schedule the Oral Defense: Upon being notified that the student passed the Written Case Report portion, the student must coordinate with the committee members to schedule the date and time for the oral defense. Students must schedule the Clinical Comps Oral Defense prior to the start of finals week of the Spring Semester prior to applying to internship; this would typically be a student’s third year of the CCP program.
Under exceptional circumstances, students may request to complete the Clinical Comps Oral Defense at a time different than that described above. In such circumstances, students are only allowed to schedule the Clinical Comps Oral Defense during the Fall or Spring semester while classes are in session.
Once the defense has been scheduled, the student should notify and submit to the DCT via email the Appointment of Graduate Faculty form.
Deliver the Oral Defense: On the day of the examination, the student should print and bring with them: 1) a copy of the Oral Defense Rubric for each committee member, and 2) the Comprehensive Exam Report form. These forms must be completed by the committee and returned to the program assistant once all committee members have agreed that the student has passed the Clinical Comps and signed both forms.
Clinical Comps Exam Committee
A committee of three core CCP faculty will be identified by the DCT at the start of the spring semester. The committee will typically consist of 1) the primary clinical supervisor for the case presented, 2) the student’s primary program mentor (i.e., dissertation chair), and 3) a third member of the CCP Program Core Faculty who will be selected by the DCT.
The DCT will select the third member based on the type of clinical case being presented and the experience of the faculty available for inclusion. The DCT will also select the third member of the committee attempting to evenly distribute the workload amongst the core CCP faculty.
The DCT will select two committee members in the case that a) the program mentor and case supervisor are the same faculty member, b) the primary supervisor is already assigned to several other committees, or c) the case supervisor is a not a member of the CCP core faculty.
The primary program mentor will serve as the chair of the committee and is responsible for determining the suitability of the case before it is submitted to the examining committee and the appropriateness of the examination procedure after the oral examination has been completed. That is, when students identify a potential case, they must first inform their primary mentor about the referral question or source. The student may not complete the Doctoral Clinical Competency Examination Application until the case has been approved by the primary mentor.
Cases selected for presentation in the Clinical Comps Exam must come from work conducted within the USA Psychology Clinic either through formal program practicum (i.e., in the summer of their 2nd year CCP556 or in CCP756) or through specialty practicum experiences under the supervision of a core CCP faculty member within the USA Psychology Clinic.
Clinical Comps Exam Evaluation
The Clinical Comps Exam has two components: the Written Case Report and the Oral Defense. The student’s Written Case Report will be evaluated first via the Written Case Report Rubric which will be completed and submitted via REDCap. In order to proceed with the Oral Defense, the student must pass the Written Case Report. The evaluation for each component is as follows:
Written Case Report Evaluation
Each committee member will have one week to independently review the Written Case Report using the Written Case Report Rubric (This link contains a pdf version of the evaluation rubric. The formal evaluation will be completed using a RedCap survey that is emailed to committee members). The Written Case Report Rubric consists of the following domains, which will each be scored using a 3-point Likert scale:
Quality of Written Document - Quality, comprehensiveness, and professionalism of the written case report, including grammatical and formatting considerations.
Psychopathology and Diagnosis
Evidence-based intervention
Evidence-based assessment
Ethical and legal standards
Individual and cultural diversity
Professional values and attitudes
Communication and interpersonal skills
Consultation/interprofessional/interdisciplinary collaboration
Supervision
Committee members will submit their scores to the DCT via REDCap who will aggregate them and provide final determination of pass/fail status to the student.
Students are determined to have passed the Written Case Report if the majority of CCP faculty provide an overall rating of ‘2 – Meets expectations’.
The scores and comments in the remaining domains listed above are intended to provide students with feedback that they are able to integrate into their oral defense. These scores and comments will also be considered along with the feedback provided in the Oral Defense to determine whether the student has passed the Clinical Comps Exam overall.
Oral Defense Evaluation
Following the delivery of the oral defense and answering of questions, the student will be excused from the meeting. The committee members will then independently rate the student's performance using the Oral Defense Rubric, while also considering whether the student integrated the feedback they received on their written case report (This link contains a pdf version of the evaluation rubric. The formal evaluation will be completed using a RedCap survey that is emailed to committee members).
The Oral Defense Rubric consists of the following domains, which will each be scored using a 3-point Likert scale:
Case Presentation - Quality, comprehensiveness, and professionalism of the oral defense.
Psychopathology and Diagnosis
Evidence-based intervention
Evidence-based assessment
Ethical and legal standards
Individual and cultural diversity
Professional values and attitudes
Communication and interpersonal skills
Consultation/interprofessional/interdisciplinary collaboration
Supervision
If a committee member is unable to provide a score for a domain they are encouraged to leave it blank so that the committee can deliberate on an appropriate score for that domain.
Committee members will turn in their Oral Defense Rubric to the committee chair who will determine domains that the student has failed. The student will pass the exam if the majority of the committee member provide an overall rating of ‘2 – Meets expectations’) in all domains. Deliberation amongst committee members will occur after all individual rubrics have been turned in and determination of pass/fail has been made by the chair. The purpose of the deliberation is to provide students with thorough feedback regarding their performance in each domain and not to convince the committee to alter scores/decisions.
Students will then be given feedback about their performance. Additionally, the Committee Members will complete, sign, and give the Comprehensive Exam Report Form to the program assistant. The process is not complete until this form is processed and provided to the graduate school.
Failing and Retaking the Clinical Comps Exam
The Clinical Comps Exam has two components: the Written Case Report and the Oral Defense. Thus, the student may fail and retake the Written Case Report and/or the Oral Defense. The process for each is as follows:
Written Case Report Evaluation
If the majority of CCP faculty provide an overall rating of ‘1 – Does not meet expectations’ on the ‘Quality of Written Document’ rating, the student will be provided with written feedback and allowed to draft a revision to the written case report. The revised document is due within 1 week of the date the student was notified that they did not pass. The revised document may include edits to the written case report, and a direct response to the written feedback. This revision will be re-evaluated in the same manner as the original submission.
If, after revision, a student is determined to not pass, the student will be placed on a remediation plan that identifies the student’s strengths and weaknesses as they relate to the written case report. The remediation plan will also specify supports and benchmark expectations for performance. Among these benchmarks will include details regarding the re-examination, which will occur during the following academic year. This means that students who fail to adequately revise the written case report will be ineligible to apply for internship that fall. The remediation plan will be created via a combined effort from the student’s Clinical Comps Exam Committee. Failure to successfully resolve the remediation plan may result in the student being placed in formal probation or being dismissed from the program.
Oral Defense Evaluation
If the majority of CCP Faculty provide a rating of 1 in any evaluation domain they will be placed on a remediation plan that identifies the students' strengths and weaknesses as they relate to the domain(s) rated as "not meeting expectations" during the examination process. The remediation plan will also specify supports and benchmark expectations for performance. Among these benchmarks will include details regarding the re-examination.
Students will be allowed one oral defense re-examination. The conditions of the re-examination (e.g., whether the same case can serve as the foundation for the re-examination, whether a second oral defense is required, etc.) will depend on the circumstances under which the student was deemed to have failed the exam and will be specified by the committee and communicated in the remediation plan.
Students must wait until the following semester and no longer than twelve months before re-examination. Students may be allowed to complete re-examinations during the summer months, if they are able to identify a committee of faculty who are willing to serve on the committee. Otherwise, the student may attempt re-examination in the Fall or Spring semester of the following academic year. If the student is able to successfully complete the re-examination and propose their dissertation prior to the stated deadline for applying to internship (i.e., October 15th of the academic year in which the student applies), then they will be allowed to apply for internship accordingly. Alternatively, students may retake the clinical comps exam by the end of the spring semester of the next year. Failure to do so will result in dismissal from the CCP Program.
If a student is determined during the re-examination defense to have failed (i.e., "not meeting expectations" in any domain), the student is immediately dismissed from the CCP Program.